The "Deity" difficulty level of Civilization V says that "the AI receives heavy advantages". In Civ IV this meant that the AI started with more units, 2 settlers, etc.

So my question is two-fold:

a) what bonuses does a "deity" level AI get in terms of units and resource production (hammers+cultures+food+gold+science etc)

b) any general suggestions as how to deal with the results of a? I know that you should generally try to expand as fast as possible and war with a neighbor sooner rather than later (before they can get a tech lead) to take advantage of their developed cities and remove their production.

I'm intersted to see whether anyone has actually achieved this yet. While the AI seems a bit weak at the moment, I've found Emperor to be challenging enough that I haven't tried going higher. Of course if you just want the achievement, you could probably use a Duel map as Montezuma and just hope for a quick rush.
–
bwarnerSep 27 '10 at 22:26

Here's my take on it: By Luck. :-) Given the AIs advantage starting with a normal map config without any advanced tweaking will just let you win if you get an exceptionally good starting position. That's why I never bothered with Deity in Civ4 and will not in Civ5 :-P
–
MartinOct 21 '10 at 19:38

12 Answers
12

Apparently there is a flawless strategy in civ5 and if you apply it correctly, winning on deity is rather easy. And you don't even have to make some special settings for the game. Just I have to warn that its much more fun if you discover it yourself rather than get it from internet, as in that way it kind of ruins your game experience as it did to me to some level.

The easiest way (as Irony Man correctly pointed out) is setting the map type to archipelago, as AI is totally hopeless on water. Just expand all the time, build some naval units to fend off any aggressive AIs, grab those resources, trade and develop. You should be able to get any kind of victory quite easily.

You can also use continents or Pangaea maps. You need to apply a flawless strategy to get a win on those. A strategy might be slightly different depending on which faction you are playing, but there are some basic rules which work for all of them. The specific faction strategy is to get the most of the special ability. That means if you are playing for English - build naval units, if you are playing for French - build a lot of small cities, if you are playing for Romans - build all that is needed in Rome, etc.

The most important bit is a good start. I would divide it into three phases:

Settling. My winning initial build order is worker-settler-scout. Develop technologies needed to get those resources. Scout the land using your initial warrior and try to not be delayed by any spotted barbarians. Settle the land to grab the luxury resources asap, but don't go too far from your capital. Once you got a scout use it to discover map further and use your warrior to deal with barbarians near your cities. Get Liberty SP branch and Citizenship SP next. At this point you just build settlers, workers and monuments in all your cities. Forget about any early Wonders. If you met a militaristic CS you can steal a worker from them (they are useless). Declare a war, capture a worker and make peace all in the same turn. On the other hand its way too easy and some people call it an exploit, so I don't usually do that.

Fighting. At some point you'll meet other civs. Be nice to them, but don't forget that they are your rivals and sadly due to a crazy inherent AI warmongering its almost impossible to make a good friend till the end of the game in Civ5. You might be able to settle 2 cities or maybe 5 cities (depending on the map) before you start rubbing your shoulders with other civs. Discover archery and build some 2-3 archers. Discover horseback riding and build some 2-3 horsemen. Don't bother about infantry. Once you have 5-6 units declare a war to your nearest neighbour. Try to get other civs as your allies in this war for now. Do not attack! Select a good defendable spot of land (might be a river valley or similar), preferably inside your borders for a friendly lands fighting bonus and faster healing and get them to come. Don't lose any of your units, if necessary retreat to heal. AI should send several waves of units and run out of them at some point. By that time you should have discovered mathematics and built a catapult or two. Now heal your army and go and get those AI cities. Raze them and leave a capital as a puppet (annex it then you have some spare happiness). Settle the land with your own settlers. Now do the same to the next neighbour...

Developing. Constantly develop your cities, prioritize them. That means that some of your cities would be appointed to making money (if they have a lot of luxury resources nearby), some to making science (if they got jungle tiles), some to production (a lot of hills) to build wonders and units, some to make culture (none of the above advantages). You still need culture to adopt those all important policies even if you are not going for cultural victory. Dedicating city to some task means that you build that aspect enhancing building as soon as you have it available (markets, banks, stock exchanges for money cities, etc.) and you appoint specialists only to that same task. Still every city should have at least a monument, library, market and a coliseum. Make city-state allies. Preference is for not hostile ones with a luxury resource you don't have. After you make allies with several maritime CS's you can stop building farms and better build trade posts. Then make allies with cultural CS's. Forget about militaristic ones, unless they have a resource you so badly need.

Now if you still haven't lost your army at this point you should be doing rather well and can continue playing the way you like. Or if you want to be really effective and crush them all you can apply an ICS (infinite city sprawl) strategy. This strategy is genuine and it works perfectly, but honestly I don't like it myself at all, as it takes all the fun off the game. So if you enjoy Civ5 so far and want it to continue better close this post now, but if you want to further ruin your game experience read on..

The basics of ICS are explained elsewhere much better than I would be able to, so I'll just quote. Here's the theory behind Infinite City Sprawl, as written by alpaca in his Infinite Rome thread on Civfanatics:

The idea of an ICS strategy is to
settle cities as close as possible to
leverage the additional growth,
production and commerce that small
cities have over large ones. In Civ5,
there are a number of game mechanics
that lend themselves well to this kind
of strategy. To wit:

1) Maritime city states. The bonus
granted from maritime city states is
per city. Each adds +2 food to the
city tile at the start, increasing to
+4 over the course of the game. Since every city benefits from this free
food, a single maritime CS ally will
allow you to set up two additional
specialists in every in the later
stages of the game. Obviously, the
more cities the better, because each
gets the bonus.

2) Happiness buildings. In Civ5,
happiness is global... or is it? In
fact, only the consumption of
happiness is really global. The
production is local. Each city can
build happiness buildings, and the
low-tier buildings are more efficient
and more effective than the higher
ones. If you have lots of small
cities, each can have a Colosseum and
a Circus where available, and some
theatres. This actually rules out
happiness as a long-term limiting
factor and turns it into a
growth-limiting factor because you
need to set up these buildings in each
new city.

3) Purchasing things with gold.
Provided you have enough gold, you can
buy buildings where and when you need
them. Spamming trade posts is a
typical strategy, and it's possibly
even better in ICS. Just spam trade
posts, make money, and buy the
buildings you need. This is especially
good for the more expensive buildings
which have a better gold/hammer ratio.

4) Certain policies, like Communism
and much of the Liberty tree, scale
with the number of cities. So do some
civilization abilities or buildings,
like the one of Harun al-Rashid or the
Chinese Paper Maker. For them, you
also want as many cities as possible.

5) Research favors large empires
because a tech will cost the same, no
matter how many cities you have. Since
having more cities usually means
having more science, you will tech
faster.

6) Trade route maintenance makes you
want to put your cities as close
together as possible. City tiles are
free roads, after all.

There is a significant drawback to ICS
which I won't hide from you: The speed
of unlocking social policies. This is
the only thing that is really better
for small empires because, roughly,
your average culture per city is what
determines policy speed. Since there
are sources of culture that don't
scale with the number of cities, like
wonders and cultural CS, you will be
slower at unlocking these SPs, so make
sure you only pick those which are
most useful to you.

Thanks for the answer. Using an Archipelago+ICS strategy, I just got a diplomatic victory on Deity using Suleiman.
–
Neal TibrewalaDec 27 '10 at 2:58

@Adi My God. How much time did it take you to learn the civ 5? Are you familiar with the series?
–
MugenJan 10 '11 at 15:27

1

There have been a few patches that have tried to cripple the ICS strategy. Is the ICS strategy still possible and practical?
–
Paul MarshallJul 2 '13 at 2:02

With BNW and other patches, 3 of the 6 underpinnings of this strategy are much weaker: Maritime city states only give half the food, happiness buildings give less happiness, and research costs increase 5% per city. Is this strategy still viable?
–
Paul MarshallMar 23 '14 at 18:44

You can get the difficulty based achievements in a team game. So get yourself on a nice pangaea, plop down 5 allies (set them to "team 1" in advanced settings) and then beat the lights out of the last poor civ. You get the win (and associated achievement) but this is sorta counterproductive if you're reading this question trying to become a better player, yaknow?

On Deity any AI player starts with: three warriors, two settlers, two workers, and a scout.(!)

Holy Cow, that's quite an advantage. Has anyone ever won against those odds?
–
DJClayworthSep 28 '10 at 16:56

@DJ Of course. Check out the awesome G+K Dido Diety LP series on youtube. Thats not even the most important bonus. The most broken AI advantage is the +60ish happiness. I have never seen an AI civ go unhappy on prince+ difficulties, they just have too big a bonus.
–
LawtonJul 7 '12 at 2:59

Actually, you don't need to rush a low-tech war if you can find a way to keep out of trouble. Here is how I did it:

I made an Advanced Setup with myself as Gandhi, allied with Montezuma and Oda Nobunaga (To create an ally, click "Add AI Player" and match the team number with your own. Other military oriented civs would probably do just as well.) You can add more if you wish, but I found two AI members to be sufficient. As the only opposing civ, I chose Alexander because his main trait is tied to city-states (The same would go for Ramkhamhaeng). These are the changes I made:

City-States: 0 - No advantage for poor Alex.

Map Type: Archipelago - Islands are easier to defend.

Map Size: Duel - So that the AI can't found 17 cities while you're producing your first worker.

Difficulty Level: Deity - Well, that's the point, isn't it?

Game Pace: Quick - Unless you want more time for potentially being crushed.

Sea Level: High - Less land means smaller differences.

Now, allies do not simply add to your team's strength compared to the single civ. Since research is now split between team members, your participation will make the combined science effort slightly lower than that of a pure deity AI player. However, more allies will probably make your weakness less significant (If you don't mind waiting longer between turns, or you're playing on a Giant Death Computer).
The idea is not to use your allies to win by domination (There is no way in which you can coordinate offensive warfare with them anyway, those deity retards). The team is simply there to discourage your opponent from going to war. There will probably be a few fights anyway, but with a bit of luck, the enemy will then be so busy with your allies that he won't send more units toward your cities than what you can handle with city bombardment, friendly territory bonuses and a few up-to-date land units.

Science can actually be totally neglected (I didn't even build libraries), since new technologies will pop up from your superior allies anyway. Economy is not the most important either, unless you base your growth on purchasing. With allies providing somewhat of a "cold war standstill" defense, you are now free to focus almost entirely on culture and production. Keep your people happy and rush buildings and wonders which will boost culture or lower social policy requirements (Keep an eye for new wonders, so that your allies don't grab them first). Select your policies wisely within 5 branches and aim toward completing them all. The choice is yours, but I'd say Piety and Freedom are unquestionable.

Unless your cities get caught in the line of fire, or your allies fail to keep a larger wave from coming your way, you should be able to finish the Utopia Project before 2050. Yeah, I know, it's a Freemason NWO Eye in the Pyramid, but if one has to join the dark side to win a cultural victory, so be it. For "Flawless Strategy"! :P

Play/studied the game using the follow settings: deity, random map, quick (probably a disadvantage for the human but 330 turns takes long enough), size = standard. I win at this level over 50% of the time. (against AI; this analysis is not applicable to human opponents). Note that many approaches that can succeed at more moderate settings just won't work here due to time pressure (the AI gets to a science victory ridiculously fast at deity level).

My own view is setting up the game or choosing opponents that are weak is of no interest and so I won't address those approaches. Likewise, a duel is far easier that multiple adversaries on standard or huge maps. Picking your leader is essential however and there lies the most important decision you'll make.

I don't want to write a total spoiler (because that would take away from the discovery/fun of the game), but let me share some observations and strategies that I found applicable at this setting:

At this level and with this multiple opponents, an offensive military based strategy will fail under almost all scenarios. Military should be for defense and deterrence; in the ideal game you may not even get attacked (yes, that is possible if you play correctly). Naval power is key and generally coastal cities are advantageous for this and some other reasons.

At these setting, the consistent/only path of victory is diplomatic. Given the AIs advantages, there is just insufficient time for science and culture victory is out of the question. Venice comes on very strong if played correctly. Alexander achieves a similar advantage, but it takes him a bit longer and he can't purchase CSs like Venice. Either way. you can win by not losing in the early game and then lap you opponents at the last moment to achieve a diplomatic victory.

A winning strategy must be focused and what you don't do is an essential component. No shines, no piety, forget don't waste resources on archaeology, no tanks, no air power, generally just infantry, artillery and naval, with a preference to ranged units (often cobbled together from what your militaristic allies send you). Defense/deterrence rather than offense. Likewise, at this setting you'll come late to the ideology phase and will still be culturally weak and so you'll often need to choose the ideology is dominant and/or use your control at the UN to make your ideology the world ideology. In most scenarios there will be no early adapter bonus for you.

Become host at the UN asap (not too hard for either Venice or Greece) and use it to reconfigure the game to your advantage. Repeal things as needed; embargo cultural leaders to slow their victory path and definitely, at an opportune point, make your ideology the world ideology.

You'll need to skip land ships, tanks, etc. and other non-essential research to get to Hubble first. Then use the science boost to get to globalization soon afterwards.

Finally, every resource needs to be used to its utmost and there many subtle mechanisms that can make a huge difference. My workers are more like military engineers at times; at other times I have them clear forest outside my city for the productivity / plus to spoil the land for my opponents. Cargo ships should sometimes be used to boost food/production for your own cities. Everything has multiple/subtle uses and you need to fully exploit your limited resources.

Hope, I haven't given away too much.

A final thought -- the art of war is to not fight. That is what Civ 5 is about. Enjoy!

Note: This answer uses the Brave New World expansion. Given its focus on city-states, it's probably applicable to Vanilla Civ5, though the main way to gain influence with CSs in Vanilla is money: you will need a huge money engine.
–
Paul MarshallMar 19 '14 at 15:50

Agreed and Venice's double trade route feature is an amazing money machine! I've done it with Alex as well, you just have to to very careful about saving $ and using quests whenever possible to gain influence.
–
user71965Mar 22 '14 at 23:13

Just picked up my first deity victory so I thought I would add some thoughts. I won on a Tiny Continents map as Persia without any AI allies. My opening was as I've described elsewhere, build up a military to attack my nearest neighbor (Askia). After doing that and taking over my continent, I started going for a cultural victory (since I hadn't gotten that yet). The rest of the game was much more a showcase of the AI's incompetence than my own skill.

Alexander conquered his own larger continent. He was way ahead of me technologically and had a huge unused bank account. He never launched a naval assault on me or the one city that was left of Montezuma, though it certainly would've been successful. He reached the future age around the 1700s, but never built the Apollo project, despite having tons of time and resources to do so. He ended the game with over 80,000 gold and had built the UN, but he didn't buy out the city states to get the diplomatic victory.

So I guess the key to victory is playing on something other than Pangaea, and making sure that you have a path to victory, and just ignoring the AI as much as possible. Kind of disappointing, and something that I hope will change as they have more time to work on the AI. I might try tinkering with the AI parameters in the XML file to see if I can make any improvements.

Not sure if anyone is still trying to do this. But on dual deity archipelego map you can just build triremes asap, declare war and set up a naval blockade on your opponent. I won domination victory in 170 turns (quick game) and that was making a lot of mistakes and getting several units killed.

I have chosen that setup, because a) I love challenges! and b) I like it with many civilizations nearby (like in real world) which makes it much more dynamic.

And you can win! But I have to say I failed many times and you need to get experiences. And your position is important if you are central for example- well then you are dead!.But mostly you will not be central, but I can assure there will be always someone who attacks you, maybe even several players, and you have to build a defense army quickly

I played indeed a bit risky, because I developed at first a quick expansion, so i chose liberty to get a free settler, my first production of my city was worker (so I can develop fast my production and luxury resources, because I will build 2 cities in the first 50 turns) and then i build a monument and then a settler. After that I built my army, and I had to be quickly!. I also built stonehenge, because no luckily no one builds that (not the library, there is always someone who builds library!)

I watched my borders and whenever someone set up a huge amount of troops on my borders, indicating that he will declare war to me, I denounced him, and then he moved away. But be careful sometime there will be war, that you cannot avoid and due then you have to make sure you got your defense and dont try to get out of your borders with your troops, keep your defense and be ready that someone else will declare war to you unexpectedly.

When I did that, have to say that I was already in the first 100 turns a strong civilization, with strong economy, and was equally high (ranking) than many other civilizations, in the next 100 turns, could even catch up to the second best and later won the game.

It is easy to win on Deity. Just played through a huge world map. You just need to get a boat and travel to the farthest land you see. Then make a deal with the civilization over there. I give them gold every turn so they give me all their gold. Then I declare war, but since it is such a long way to travel I never get attacked by them. And soon they want to be friends again.

Is the AI really that stupid that you can pull this off more than once?
–
MartinOct 25 '10 at 13:52

@Martin, I don't know about more than once, but I've heard this, here is another one - capture cities and sell them to a civ on another continent, they'll give you a lot of money... I try not to use these exploits myself
–
AdjOct 26 '10 at 14:18